Shame in the name of Indian food.

We recently dined at House of Spice, Shanklin and the overall experience was less than poor. The location ,menu and staff are good, but overall food experience was horribly wrong. We ordered Lamb Tikka and Tandoori King Prawns in starters, Lamb Achari, Chicken Korma and Naans to start with. Both the starters were quite small in terms of portion size (3 prawns and 4 small lamb pieces buried under a small heap of sliced onions and lettuce). Lamb itself was medium rare and chewy. I had to bring that to the notice of serving staff so that I get well cooked Lamb Achari in mains. However both Lamb Achari and Chicken Korma were disastrous. Lamb dish strangely had big pieces of raw mango pickle (whilst it should just have hint of it), it felt like one is eating mango pickle with lamb in it. Chicken Korma was so sweet that it felt like desert. Both of these dishes were ordered on recommendation of restaurant staff but none of them were up to the mark. We ordered lightly spiced Chicken Korma so that my 8 year old daughter can enjoy it, but she didn’t touched it after first her first bite. We didn’t feel ordering anything after that though we wished too. The most disappointing thing was attitude of restaurant manager. When we tried to provide our feedback about sweet Korma he seemed irritated and kept telling us this is how we make our Korma dishes. This tells me that this restaurant doesn’t like any criticism from customers.

I would assess the food quality as 2, value at normal prices 2.5, but management and overall service as a negative. Their hygiene rating is only 2 out of 5,. I would give 2 as overall rating to this restaurant.